It really does kind of rock my world that Little Green Footballs has gone from what I remember to being the kind of blog that mocks Rush Limbaugh and climate change deniers. Anyway: The Climategate Criminal Conspiracy.

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on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under global warming.
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62 Responses to “LGF on David Hone on “Climategate””

I can recall when little green nutballs was all “libtard!” “line em all up an shoot em!” “invading Iraq is teh xact right thing to do! WMDz!” etc etc. whtvr dude. Welcome to reality in any case. Better late than never, eh?

hey if you right wing nut jobs are all about ‘transparency’ let us see every email and doc the climate change deniers have every written. Since it is apparently OK to commit a crime if it furthers one’s agenda, we can consider this carte blanche to steal their every nutterance for the last 10 years and cherry pick a few that might be able to be torqued into some vast subversion of Science.

I’ll tell you what, you find and prosecute the whistle blower for what invasion of privacy? And we will prosecute (already found our scoundrels) for the crimes they have committed. We’ll start with destroying information under request and then move on to having their tenure revoked, defamation of character, etc, etc.

That was about the lamest post jbc has ever made. (Which actually means it was not too bad – that’s praise by faint derision.) Still, digging down into the links left me with a sickly feeling and a sense that JBC is stuck in his paradigm, while the people making comments to the contrary sounded more reasoned. Has the global consensus on anthropogenic climate change actually sunk into a debate about optics?

That was good Knarly. A few days ago you said it was ridiculous to say that people have built their careers around this bad science and needed to continue the lies simply because their futures depended on it. You are seeing that here on a miniature level, JBC obviously isn’t going to lose his livelihood over something some scientists did in Britain, but his ego is at risk here, he has been right about this for years and now he is proven wrong. Enky is in the same boat, he claims he never said the “science is in” and in looking into it he is at least partially right, he has said “the science isn’t in” on numerous occasions but he has also been the cheerleader for those that say it is on numerous occasions. And this isn’t a new discussion, in looking for Enky quotes I found this very same discussion with Matt, someone named Doc and a couple others back in 2004. This is what happens when you become emotionally attached to something, or someone for that matter, love is blind.

My thinking in objecting to the statement that people have built their careers around this bad science was that anyone of relavence to science would have a distinguished academic background and/or magnificient skills that would transcend trivial (or not so trivial) political debates about global warming. I’d admit that Bloggers, fundraisers and talking tv heads might have based a large part of their reputation on bad science, or even their “career”, but if so you couldn’t say that was much to lose and their relevance is about the same as ants at a bison hunt.

But you have to remember this snuck up on them, they had 20 years of data that showed CO2 and global warming were linked, and it was their 20 years, not looking back on 20 years of data someone else had accumulated. And like someone who embezzles, they start off putting a meal on their expense account they shouldn’t and it is so easy before long they have justified out and out embezzlement. The scientists made the numbers work jus t a little at first. They figured it was just a blip, the data will return to the baseline, it has to, it just has to. Then it didn’t, well fudge the numbers a little more, the data will surely come back soon, but it didn’t, now we’re 4 or 5 years into this fudging and you start covering up your earlier fudges and…

No I’m not, it’s just human nature. Let me take it from this direction, you wouldn’t have any trouble at all believing this scenario if it were a bunch of businessmen would you? Especially if they were in one of the “evil” businesses, arms, pharmaceuticals, oil, investments, tobacco, etc. Why would you believe businessmen would engage in trickery and dishonesty to fuel their egos and profits but somehow if you are a scientist you are above those human traits?

One of Charlie Martin’s bullet points from today’s column that I thought was particularly poignant:

The key to science is “trust but verify”: you trust the science because you are assured you can verify it if necessary. The Climategate files show the CRU clique wanted to be trusted, but didn’t want to be verified.

Who has the higher professional ethics is a red herring. We can assume any human is suscptible to the demons of their dark side and on a less dramatic basis is also susceptible to the kind of insipid fall from grace of which you describe.

The issue is what evidence should be required before passing judgement. In the case of esteemed investment execs committing fraud (e.g. Bernie Madoff et al) or banks/insurance co’s using public funds to maintain inflated bonus schemes, the facts are right there and the conspiracy is exposed – there is little left to the imagination.

There is a simple reason why it is ridiculous for you to say that people have built their careers around this bad science and needed to continue the lies simply because their futures depended on it. That is because, in order for this to be of significance (i.e. the norm for esteemed scientists rather than a mere exception of fundraisers, etc.), it had to be a broad, near world-wide phenomenom. I just don’t see any good evidence for that; I do see you making ample use of your imagine though, to argue that it is so.

Your pyjamas post about Professor David J. Bellamy proves my point. There you have a distinguished scientist who still has his career even though he objected to the consensus view. That T.V. execs didn’t want to air his views is another issue – an issue of what’s deemed newsworthy or sufficently entertaining, or it may be a polical issue, or what have you – but it is ridiculous to say that this scientist’s career came to an end. He just didn’t get on T.V. anymore. But go on and imagine what you will, I’m done with that topic.

Well I’m not finished. This doesn’t have to be a worldwide conspiracy, you have a few people who figured out a way to manipulate the information flow toss in some either complicit are duped politicians to control the money flow and bingo. And it is the same as investment bankers and people like Madoff in as much as the people that were supposed to be watching them weren’t.

Yes, he doesn’t get on TV anymore, he has been controlled. You don’t have to kill your enemy, just control him.

The issue is what evidence should be required before passing judgment. In the case of esteemed investment execs committing fraud (e.g. Bernie Madoff et al) or banks/insurance co’s using public funds to maintain inflated bonus schemes, the facts are right there and the conspiracy is exposed there is little left to the imagination.

Ah Hello! What do you think we are talking about here? The fact these guys cooked the book is right out there too.

I say “supposedly” because at this point, lacking a polygraph, it’s hard to know for sure what any of these professional climate folks really think or believe or aspire to. The bombshell revelations of recent weeks, now known as Climategate, and explored so thoroughly and informatively on this website, should have shaken to the roots any true believer in the doctrine of man-made global warming owing to CO2 and other greenhouse gases. But so far there appear not to have been any major defections from the climate club — not that that’s really much of a surprise, because even before the dam burst, it was clear that this whole movement to place global warming at the heart of the international agenda wasn’t about responsible science but about politics, pure and simple.

Of course, everything here in Copenhagen seems to be proceeding as planned. The show must go on. All over town, the message being trumpeted is the same one reiterated in Sunday’s Times: that the science of this stuff is all settled, period, and that all that remains is to act.

…

But in the name of all that’s holy, is this really our future: an endless series of inane, empty gestures posturing as meaningful action on behalf of a legitimate cause — perhaps coupled, if the Climate Mafia gets its way, with worldwide legislation that uses its con as an excuse to obliterate, for all but a privileged few, what in America are known as constitutional liberties?

None of this shit changes the fact that CO2 levels are waaaay higher now that at any other point in the last 650,000 years, completely breaking from the so-called “natural cycle” that deniers love to try to use as an excuse.

None this shit changes the fact that as CO2 concentrations rise in our atmosphere, so does the Earth’s temperature.

None of this shit changes the fact that our polar ice caps and glaciers all over the world are melting. Sea levels are rising.

And that’s why no matter how loud deniers kick and scream they’re still being ignored by the vast majority of the scientific community.

Look, I’m a pretty reasonable guy and I look at all the evidence and the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence points to increased CO2 concentrations equalling increased global temp. When you look at the past 100 years (during the industrial revolution) it is extremely evident that humans are pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere that wouldn’t otherwise be there and this is trapping heat in our planet making the temperature rise.

For me and billions of other people this makes perfect sense and is based on sound science.

You, and the right-wing bloggers that you rely on for information have yet to show me anything that would make me and the rest of us think otherwise. And until you can I’m going to side with the folks who’ve been researching this for decades.

This shit changes everything because it changes the politics. This has never been about the science, at least not the science you are relying on. If the politics masquerading as science you are relying on to make your informed decision were accurate there would have been no need to change the data, lose other data, or use any method required to squelch dissention. FOI requests wouldn’t have been necessary, all the information would have been readily available.

But the politics have now changed, this will put more pressure on the courts to see that these FOI requests are honored, at some point the destruction of evidence will become a story, it will become a story when the press can wiggle out of their complicitancy, but that point is coming fast enough. This is all provided the left can’t stall long enough. This seems their only hope at saving this politically, the left has lost the science aspect, all that can be saved now is the politics.

But the people that have been researching this for decades have been lying, the ones you have been relying on, not the scientists that disagree with AGW.

I heard a story about Einstein the other day, someone asked him about a fellow scientist that was saying his work was wrong and that this scientist had said that he was part of a group of 100 scientists that agreed with him. Einstein commented that if this other scientist were right why does he need the other 99.

Oh lord. Sorry pal, but I’m going to trust my science books over a right-wing blog any day. Scientists in my country have been studying this for years and I trust them. Plus, I have simple logic and basic mathematics on my side

You think we’re losing steam? Bah! Well that just shows how out of touch you really are with reality. For the first time ever, the whole world is united on this – US, China, Brazil, India, Russia, EU, Africa…

You really think a few hacked emails from one school is some sort of big thing? Nobody even cares about that except for people who’ve been looking for anything to stop progress.

Well, you can’t stop this my friend. Unlike the fake grass roots movements you’re accustomed to this is real. Very real.

Let me get this straight: out of approx 12,000 emails the wwnjs have found all of 6 (8?) emails that might – repeat might – be construed to be a researcher bellyaching about wwnj distortions of their research? oooops I meant a worldwide conspiracy to defraud Science and steal trillions of dollars for the sole purpose of destroying the first world. That is a hell of a lot of stuff going on in those emails. The ones I’ve read sound more like someone joking around or complaining. Can you tell me the name of that file that was deleted? (snicker – so far as I have read there is zero evidence anything has been deleted or adulterated btw).

This is just part of the anti-Science smear campaign that wwnjs think is some sort of techno-conservatism. Unless the scientists are working for the energy companies, in which case they are selflessly sacrificing their careers earning far more than they would working at gov financed research labs.

We had dinner with our venture capital friend (he thinks the CO2 hypothesis is bunk) on Saturday night and I asked him about the Climategate furor (careful wwnjs, you might not like how this ‘gate’ turns out) He had lunch the day before w the author of Physics for Future Presidents (several excepts available on line) and they both agreed the real casualty is the public’s trust in science (or should that be Science?) Too bad we’ll have to use science to figure out what to do… quite the conundrum.

wwnj and the deniers already had their answer and they went looking for any shred of possible (certainly not proven) wrongdoing.

Let me give you an example:
‘The Trick’
Here is a trick for you wwnj. You can tell which word is which between lose and loose by using a simple mnemonic trick: You are apt to lose your hat if it is too loose. See how the to reminds you that lose (looz) has one “o” while the too reminds you that loose (looc) has two “o”s? It is a simple trick. Enjoy!
;-)

Obviously you guys have bought into the notion that the only defense of the leaked emails and computer code is to down play it, that is really all you can do at this point. We’ll see if that works. Without getting into a point by point rebuttal, what both of you guys are missing here is the division of politics and science. The reason for citing the poll is important because of the politics, the reason for the Einstein story is science, you have to be able to separate the two, and it doesn’t seem you guys can or want to separate them. Climategate is all about politics, it has nothing to do with science. As Enky’s friend pointed out science is only a victim in this story.

What changes with climategate is the interpretation of the science. Since we know the data has been manipulated we now know our theories are suspect as well. As in my embezzlement example, once the crime has been detected you have to go back and recreate the books to see if you actually made the profit or loss you thought you did because you can no longer trust the data as presented. The data is still there, it just needs to be re-analyzed…. Unless data has been destroyed or “lost”. Sometimes you just have to start over.

Enky
Mnemonics don’t work with me, I don’t know why, they just don’t. I’m dyslexic, it is just something you learn to live with, I try and double check everything but it seems once it is in your mind you can’t see it unless you come back to it later. There are a couple words I just can’t master no matter what trick I try, loose and lose, its and it’s, only in the last month or two can I spell “necessary” but it is still a struggle. I can’t initially read “editorial”. When I see that word I have to look away for a second, think of the context the word is being used in and then I can read it, but I can write it as above just fine. The human brain is a funny thing.

Off topic: shcb, the Police Complaints Commission has finally issued a report on the tasering death of the Polish immigrant in Vancouver and it agrees with my assessment of the event. We can expect the Braidwood Inquiry to reach an even more damning conclusion about police behaviour during and in relation to this incident. Just thought I should tell you that I told you so, jsut to keep you up to date on how wrong you usually are.http://www.timescolonist.com/news/RCMP+quick+Taser+Dziekanski+Report/2316907/story.html

Hey knarls, what did you think of those Greenpeace protestors scaling our parliament building?!

I thought that shit was too cool. Love or hate these people, they know how to protest and draw attention to their cause, aren’t afraid to go to jail for what they believe in and pretty much just have balls of steel. I sent them 50 bucks when I got home from work last night lol.

Smith,
… and probably almost as disturbing. Glad that it’s amusing, but I’m sorry about the “mildly” part.

shcb, we can do better. Wasn’t this rant lifted from a Prison Planet site about the 911 conspiracy:

Well I’m not finished. This doesn’t have to be a worldwide conspiracy, you have a few people who figured out a way to manipulate the information flow toss in some either complicit are duped politicians to control the money flow and bingo. And it is the same as investment bankers and people like Madoff in as much as the people that were supposed to be watching them weren’t.

Yes, he doesn’t get on TV anymore, he has been controlled. You don’t have to kill your enemy, just control him.

Huh, I didn’t think JBC read this far down in a thread, form our good friends to the north,

Nevertheless, as the fellow travelers, bloviating pundits, and collar-tightened scientists must intuitively realize, the game is up, for thousands of pages of incriminating data cannot be pretended away. And I suspect there is more to come.

You see, the difference here is that in the 911 conspiracies we knew who done it, but the “truthers” wanted to blame someone else and it made no sense, in this case we know who done it and those of us that are willing to call a spade a spade are blaming them, and it makes sense.

Keep telling yourself that. All conspiracy theorists believe they “know who done it and those of us that are willing to call a spade a spade are blaming them, and it makes sense.” Perhaps we should say “Climate Change Truthers” instead of “deniers”.

Well, we’ll see, in this case the culprits aren’t denying anything, they have admitted the Emails and code are real, nothing here is made up. The question now is which side can get the most traction, the people that hold global warming as a religious truth are going to continue to try and down play the significance, what else can they do. Those of us that have considered this a scam for years are going to try and get as much mileage as we can, and hope more revelations are forthcoming, preferably from other labs. NASA will probably be next since the director there has such close ties to AlGore, more traction if you can tie it to the poster boy.

My prediction is this will just fade away, both sides will be yelling at each other long after the public has decided to ignore both and move on. 10 years from now no one will remember where they were when they heard the news of Climategate, but they will smile and shake their heads that anyone actually believed in manmade global warming because the real problem that could end life on earth is (fill in the blank).

shcb,
You’re in the prediction business now about what people will think in 10 years? Less than ten years ago you probably would have said conspiracy theories of 911 would have died by now, but more people than ever are still seeking answers. See the polls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrYYDyCbQjI&feature=player_embedded … and it’s getting more TV time than your lonely “career” climate science professor – watch this tonight if you can, it’ll be fun:

What has been reported to be one of the most fair and balanced television presentations on 9/11 is set to air tomorrow night on TruTV. The show, Conspiracy Theory, hosted by former Governor Jesse Ventura, has already been determined to be the most popular show ever on TruTV since the first episode aired last week. The first episode was on HAARP, the 9/11 episode will air tomorrow.

Conspiracy Theory – 9/11 episode
Premiere On: Wed, December 9 at 10P eastern / 9pm Central
Jesse Ventura steps into America’s most controversial conspiracy by challenging the 9/11 Commission Report and searching for evidence that the September 11th attacks may have been an inside job. At the urging of victims’ families, he finds witnesses who claim the towers were brought down by explosives, the missing black box flight recorders were actually recovered and ground control knew the hijackers were in the cockpits before the jets took off. TV-PG-V

And by the way, there is no single “real problem that can end life on earth” (for humans) but there are a number of them that are outside our control (e.g. asteroid impact) and a number of them that are well within our control (e.g. nuclear war, unrestrained pollution, and spiking greenhouse gas emissions far beyond naturally occuring levels thereby intensifying natural heating effects so our world becomes like a noon-day bug’s under a magnifying glass.

Funny skit, I guess that is why he is a comedian and not a political analyst. Those numbers are what Rasmussen reported, as they reported them, the people at Fox didn’t do a very good job of presentation however. By the way, those numbers are correct.

Smith Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Keep telling yourself that. All conspiracy theorists believe they “know who done it and those of us that are willing to call a spade a spade are blaming them, and it makes sense.” Perhaps we should say “Climate Change Truthers” instead of “deniers”.

Consider that “respectable” 911 Truthers don’t say they know who did it (they say there is plenty of circumstantial and other evidence pointing away from jihadists as the sole perpetrators);

Wheras climate change deniers have a bunch of stolen emails from one university and are all jumping up and down pointing fingers at phrases like “the trick is to”… they are acting like the disreputable 911 truthers who point at phrases like Larry Silverstein’s statement in regards to a burning building 7 that on the afternoon of 911 he said that the safest thing to do was just to “pull it”.

Debate about either statement foments the flames, neither get us any closer to the truth.

How could you miss that knarly?! I hope you care about the issues in our country as much as you care about the issues in the US and watch/read/blog on Canadian sites. We need your voice up here more than ever!

Both, Fox did a deplorable job of representing the Rasmussen article which was a little hard to read in and of itself, the internals of the poll are straightforward, but hard to find on the Rasmussen site. This stuff drives me nuts. Like the web sites that use a black background and gold font, you can’t read the damn thing, doesn’t anyone proof read anything anymore? The internals of this poll were incredible, something like 45% of the people think global warming is a major problem, but 59% think the evidence is faulty and 77% want the economy fixed first, the whole thing is a case study for the comedy of the human condition.

Statistics, much like science, tend to be dumbed-down and distorted in the process of being reported in popular media to such a degree as to render them useless, incoherent, totally inaccurate, or any combination thereof. The media has a habit of both treating its readers/viewers as though they are idiots and assigning writers to address issues that they are woefully unqualified to handle. How many physics/chemistry/statistics/etc. classes does an average journalism major take? You take someone who may not actually understand what they are reporting and then tell them to summarize the issue and present it as though they are speaking to a child, and the end product is a worthless mess of condescension and idiocy.

Exactly, but it goes deeper than that, I’ve never taken a statistics class either but I’m smart enough to look at those numbers and see they are too high, it wasn’t like they added up to 101%, it was what 120? But the deeper problem is this presumably went through a couple editors, someone made the graphic, the on air people presumably looked at it before they went on the air and no one caught it. And the numbers were right, but someone should have said you can’t just line them up, we need three graphics since the three numbers came from three different questions. It’s not rocket science.

Our HOA has a document that has a section that reads [shall may] just like that, in brackets. It has been on the books since 2006, no one noticed until I came along, not the lawyer, the property manager with 20 years experience and a bunch of letters behind his name, all the past directors with letters like phd behind their names. This was boilerplate, the idiots were supposed to pick one, is it may or shall, can’t be both. But you see no one looked at it, it was required by law, someone put it in front of the president at the time, whose husband has a law degree by the way, and she signed it. Drives me nuts.